What Does Jesus Have to Say About Depression?
May is mental health awareness month. Within the space of faith, we have too few conversations about the struggle with that feeling of emptiness - what the Bible describes as "despair" and clinically we call "depression." For those of you who wrestle with darkness or hopelessness, I want you to know that you are not alone.
3 years ago I was in a prolonged episode of depression. It was my longest yet, lasting 6-9 months. It got to the point that my wife was concerned that my grief in the midst of my depression would start defining me. My counselor was ready to classify it as a major depressive episode - except for the fact that I would not stop. I never stopped moving, always active, busying myself with ministry, trying to outrun the depression, like a shadow that was always right behind me, waiting to swallow me if I stopped.
One day my wife asked me a profound question. “What does Jesus have to say about your depression?”
I paused. “I don’t know. We’re not talking about it. It’s not that Jesus and I aren’t talking, we’re just not talking about that. And it’s not just me by the way. He’s not bringing it up either.”
“Maybe you should start,” she said.
I drove away to whatever the next task was… I don’t remember. I couldn’t have been more than 5 minutes down the road when I finally prayed, “Fine. What do You have to say about my depression??”
I didn’t wait very long for a reply. The voice of the Holy Spirit came, and I became silent to listen.
“My soul is sorrowful to the point of death.”
I was like Jesus had just named what I had been feeling for months. “Depression” or “sadness” or “hopelessness” doesn’t quite capture it.
“My soul is sorrowful to the point of death.”
- Matthew 26:38
“Yes…” I breathed. “That’s exactly it. It feels like my very soul is dying inside me. Dying of sorrow.”
“Those are my words,” He said. “I know exactly that feeling.” (For those of you who do not know, those were the words that Jesus spoke the night before his crucifixion in agony of depression that could not have been expressed in any other way.)
“What did you do about it?” I asked. “How did you deal with this?”
“I called my friends to surround me and pray with me.” He said.
“And that worked? That fixed it?”
“No.” he said sympathetically. “They fell asleep when I needed them most and then they all abandoned me.”
“What!? Jesus, how is that helpful!?” I asked.
“Then I died.”
I sobbed. My soul was sorrowful to the point of death. “I don’t want to die…”
“Neither did I,” he said. And then He stopped talking.
I would love to tell you that that day I was released from my depression. I would love to tell you that I had some kind of Spiritual experience that lifted me out of the muck in the mire. I didn’t. Jesus spoke to me in one of the clearest ways He ever had. And He left me in my depression. But now, I wasn’t alone.
Hebrews 4:15 says that Jesus sympathizes with our weakness, and has been tempted in every way we have. I don’t think I understood that before this moment. I didn’t really believe that a God could empathize with my level of depression until that moment. Isaiah 53 says that Jesus “was a man of sorrows.” Jesus understood my depression in a way that I could never have imagined. “My soul is sorrowful to the point of death.”
For those of you who struggle with mental illness, for those of you who struggle with depression or bipolar disorder, I want you to know that you are not alone. It’s not just that I understand the struggle (although I do). There is a God that understands firsthand. He didn’t have to subject himself to the agony of depression, but he did. Why? Why would anyone willingly put themselves into that despair? Why would he take on the whirlpool of negative voices and thoughts?
To give you and I hope. Jesus came to give you and I resurrection. To give us hope in a world redeemed. To defeat darkness and death itself, and come out the victor.
You are not alone. “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to empathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are — yet He did not sin. Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need.”
I love you.
Matt
For more teaching on what Jesus says about how to handle depression and our emotions, check out the video below.
